Bins, cooking, the bedroom: Britain's May offers glimpse of private life

Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May and her husband Philip sit with BBC Television's One Show presenters Matt Baker and Alex Jones at the BBC in London, Britain May 9, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]

He takes the garbage out, she cooks at weekends and work never enters the bedroom - British Prime Minister Theresa May and her husband Philip offered a glimpse of their private lives in a television interview on Tuesday.

In the run up to her first election as prime minister, May is trying almost every tack to win the votes she says she needs to strengthen her hand in divorce negotiations with the European Union and cement her standing as Britain's leader.

After days of factory visits and Conservative Party rallies, May, sometimes uncomfortably, took on the primetime television 'sofa chat', answering questions ranging from how she fell in love with Philip to what made her call an election for June 8.

Asked how they split their tasks at home, Philip told the BBC's One Show: "There's give and take in every marriage isn't there? I get to decide when I'll take the bins out or if I'll take the bins out."

"I definitely do the taking the bins out, I do the traditional boy jobs by and large," he said, although now she is working so hard he sometimes makes the 'tea', or dinner.

"Theresa is a very good cook," he said, although she replied that since becoming prime minister her enjoyment of creating dishes was now confined largely to the weekends.

Philip May, a British investment relationship manager and a year younger than his 60-year-old wife, has been a quiet partner to May since she was appointed prime minister shortly after Britain voted to leave the European Union last June.

Little more is known publicly about their relationship than that they met at university and shortly afterwards got married.